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Will the Administration Do Another Prisoner Swap Without Notifying Congress?

Well, maybe.

President Barack Obama walks with the parents of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Jani Bergdahl (L) and Bob Bergdahl (R) back to the Oval Office after making a statement regarding the release of Sgt. Bergdahl from captivity.

Law­makers look­ing for re­as­sur­ances that the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion would nev­er make an­oth­er Guantanamo Bay pris­on­er swap without telling them first didn’t ex­actly get what they were look­ing for Wed­nes­day.

Speak­ing be­fore the House Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee, De­fense Sec­ret­ary Chuck Hagel said the ad­min­is­tra­tion would fol­low the 30-day re­quire­ment “un­less there is an ex­traordin­ary set of cir­cum­stances.”

Army Sgt. Bowe Ber­g­dahl was re­leased May 31 to U.S. spe­cial op­er­a­tions forces in ex­change for the re­lease of five Taliban mem­bers from the U.S. fa­cil­ity at Guantanamo Bay. After leav­ing his base in Afgh­anistan in 2009, Ber­g­dahl was held for nearly five years.

“The reas­on I think they wer­en’t in­formed is, be­cause when you ori­gin­ally brought it up [in 2011] “¦ you had real push­back from Con­gress, “¦ and so this time you de­cided you would by­pass Con­gress,” Chair­man Buck McK­eon said.

Law­makers on both sides of the aisle have ques­tioned — and out­right cri­ti­cized — the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­cision to move for­ward with Ber­g­dahl’s re­lease without in­form­ing Con­gress, with McK­eon es­tim­at­ing that 80 to 90 people knew about the swap be­fore it happened.

Demo­crat Rep. Adam Smith of Wash­ing­ton de­fen­ded the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­cision to re­lease five mem­bers of the Taliban to the Qatari gov­ern­ment, say­ing “the pres­id­ent is not pur­su­ing this out of some na­kedly polit­ic­al goal [to close Guantanamo.]”

But Smith, who fre­quently de­fends the ad­min­is­tra­tion, did ob­ject to the fact it did not give 30 days’ no­tice. “It is wrong “¦ that you didn’t take the top lead­er­ship in Con­gress and talk about it,” Smith said. “The law is the law. The way you chal­lenge con­sti­tu­tion­ally is, you go to court.”

For its part, the ad­min­is­tra­tion ar­gued that it had spoken with the Justice De­part­ment be­fore the swap about wheth­er it could cir­cum­vent the 30-day no­ti­fic­a­tion re­quire­ment be­cause of the “ex­traordin­ary cir­cum­stances” and short timeline of the Ber­g­dahl swap.

“The Justice De­part­ment “¦ told the pres­id­ent he had the con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­ity to do that,” Pre­ston said.

But Hagel ac­know­ledged that the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­cisions wer­en’t per­fect.

“In hind­sight “¦ can we do bet­ter? “¦ Yes, we could have done this bet­ter. But I also said that we thought we had one shot here [to re­cap­ture Ber­g­dahl],” Hagel said.

"Chuck Rosenberg, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency who has found himself and his agency at odds with the Trump administration in recent months, told staff members Tuesday that he is planning to step down from his post." The Obama administration holdover will step down on October 1.

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HAD BEGUN TO PUBLICLY CRITICIZE TRUMP

Sen. Corker to Retire

1 hours ago

THE DETAILS

Another Republican member of Congress is showing himself out the door. After much thought, consideration and family discussion over the past year, Elizabeth and I have decided that I will leave the United States Senate when my term expires at the end of 2018,” said Sen. Bob Corker in a statement. The Tennessean has served since 2006.

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NOT ILLEGAL, BUT MUST BE FORWARDED TO WORK ACCOUNTS

At Least 6 WH Advisors Used Private Email Accounts

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

Jared Kushner, Stephen Bannon, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn, Stephen Miller, and Ivanka Trump sent or received some emails on personal accounts that related to White House business. "Officials are supposed to use government emails for their official duties so their conversations are available to the public and those conducting oversight. But it is not illegal for White House officials to use private email accounts as long as they forward work-related messages to their work accounts so they can be preserved."

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SAYS CONTACTS WERE “BENIGN”

Stone Releases Correspondence with Guccifer 2.0

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

"Roger Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to Donald Trump, released correspondence Tuesday" with the online hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 , which "U.S. intelligence agencies said was used by Russian government-linked entities to distribute embarrassing information about Democrats during the 2016 election. The disclosures came in a 47-page opening statement made available to reporters in advance of Mr. Stone’s Tuesday appearance in front of the House Intelligence Committee." Stone called his contacts with Guccifer "limited" and "benign."

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PRIEBUS, SPICER, HICKS, MCGAHAN

Mueller Could Start Interviewing White House Figures This Week

1 hours ago

THE LATEST

"Special counsel investigators could start interviewing current and former White House staff as soon as later this week regarding the Russian probe, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. One source cautioned it is still being worked out with Robert Mueller's office and said it might be delayed until next week." Among those who could have a sit-down with the special prosecutor: former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former press secretary Sean Spicer, communications director Hope Hicks, White House counsel Don McGahn, communications adviser Josh Raffel and associate counsel James Burnham.